Geosynthetic reinforced soil for low-volume bridge abutments.

Details

• Creators:
  Vennapusa, Pavana ; White, David ; Klaiber, Wayne ; Wang, Shiyun
• Corporate Creators:
  Iowa State University
• Corporate Contributors:
  Iowa. Highway Research Board ; Iowa. Dept. of Transportation
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Low volume roads
  • Geosynthetics
  • Freight cars
  • Bridges
  • Railroads
  • Low-volume roads--Iowa--Buchanan County
  • Geosynthetics--Iowa--Buchanan County
  • Bridges--Iowa--Buchanan County
  • Railroads--Iowa--Buchanan County--Rolling stock
  • Freight cars--Iowa--Buchanan County
• Publication/ Report Number:
  IHRB Project TR-621 ; InTrans Project 10-380
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Iowa
• Edition:
  Final report.
• Corporate Publisher:
  Iowa State University
• Abstract:
  This report presents a review of literature on geosynthetic reinforced soil (GRS) bridge abutments, and test results and analysis from two ; field demonstration projects (Bridge 1 and Bridge 2) conducted in Buchanan County, Iowa, to evaluate the feasibility and cost ; effectiveness of the use of GRS bridge abutments on low-volume roads (LVRs). The two projects included GRS abutment substructures ; and railroad flat car (RRFC) bridge superstructures. The construction costs varied from $43k to $49k, which was about 50 to 60% lower ; than the expected costs for building a conventional bridge. Settlement monitoring at both bridges indicated maximum settlements ≤1 in. ; and differential settlements ≤ 0.2 in transversely at each abutment, during the monitoring phase. ; Laboratory testing on GRS fill material, field testing, and in ground instrumentation, abutment settlement monitoring, and bridge live ; load (LL) testing were conducted on Bridge 2. Laboratory test results indicated that shear strength parameters and permanent ; deformation behavior of granular fill material improved when reinforced with geosynthetic, due to lateral restraint effect at the soilgeosynthetic ; interface. Bridge LL testing under static loads indicated maximum deflections close to 0.9 in and non-uniform deflections ; transversely across the bridge due to poor load transfer between RRFCs. The ratio of horizontal to vertical stresses in the GRS fill was ; low (< 0.25), indicating low lateral stress on the soil surrounding GRS fill material. Bearing capacity analysis at Bridge 2 indicated ; lower than recommended factor of safety (FS) values due to low ultimate reinforcement strength of the geosynthetic material used in ; this study and a relatively weak underlying foundation layer. Global stability analysis of the GRS abutment structure revealed a lower ; FS than recommended against sliding failure along the interface of the GRS fill material and the underlying weak foundation layer. ; Design and construction recommendations to help improve the stability and performance of the GRS abutment structures on future ; projects, and recommendations for future research are provided in this report.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/24007/dot_24007_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 15.33 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:52eec190826f87b08d52c5d1240875b7422453fb831ad98a49a917836bddfa12f7949e8c47b9af2b81ca8b3fdbc2d9d7a99e667121213c1e99590cba0ab0490c